Final LM Scrapbook Sale

Save 55% on everything in the store. Use code 55-890 when checking out at lifetimemoments.com. This is the final sale (boo hoo!). The online store closes on December 10th, but if you're lucky enough to be in the Michigan area, the physical store closes a week later. There's still lots of good stuff. Yes, I placed a final order and am considering yet another one.

Apple Crisp

Mom gave us some red Delicious apples, which we don't like, so I had to something with them. So I came up with this apple crisp.

Ingredients
3 large apples, chopped
about 1/4 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup butter
scant 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup sugar (I only had white sugar on hand, I think brown sugar would have been better)
1 pinch salt

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Place apples in an 8x8 inch baking dish (no need to grease the dish, though you could if you want more butter flavor). Toss apples with syrup.
3. Mix flour, oats, sugar, and salt. Cut in butter until mixture is crumbly.
4. Sprinkle mixture evenly over apples.
5. Bake in the preheated oven for 35 minutes, until topping is golden brown.
Tastes great as is or with some vanilla ice cream.

Mediterranean Pork

This was supposed to be Mediterranean Chicken, but pork loin was on sale so we went with what was cheapest. Hey, pork is the other white meat, right? The ingredients and instructions are a bit vague since I was using what I had on hand. It started because I had about 2/3 of a can of green olives leftover from another dish. Then I got some cherry tomatoes from Mom (can you believe she's still getting tomatoes in November?) and I needed to use all this up. How's that for inspiration? I think this dish is very adaptable and would be good with artichoke hearts too.

Ingredients
1 1/2 lbs pork loin
olives (1/2 to 1 can, whatever you have on hand)
2 1/2 cups cherry tomatoes (or any tomatoes)
1 tsp capers
4 cloves garlic, minced
olive oil
flour
salt
pepper
oregano

Directions
1. Slice the olives and chop the tomatoes. I either halved or quartered the cherry tomatoes; you want large chunks.

2. Make a coating with the flour, salt, pepper, and oregano. I used dried oregano and crumpled just a bit into the flour.

3. Slice the pork loin into medallions and coat each slice with the flour.

4. Heat some olive oil in a pan and brown the medallions. You'll most likely need to do this in batches. The medallions should be just cooked through. Remove pork. (Sorry, I didn't time how long it took to brown them.)

5. Add some more olive oil to the pan and add the garlic. Then add the olives, tomatoes, and capers. Cook just until the tomatoes give off their juice and soften a bit. You're not really making a sauce, more like a topping for the pork.

6. Add the pork back to the pan and make sure everything is heated through.

We had this with mashed potatoes (hey, russets were on sale because of Thanksgiving), but pasta, rice, or even some fresh bread would be good.

Looking for a holiday gift?

Check out these etsy shops. They're all great artists (and friends of mine, tell 'em I sent you).

The Checkered Rabbit Cute cards, tags, other paper arts, other crafts.

Dusty Rose Designs Beautiful ceramic animals, shells, fruits, polymer animals too. She also does custom sculptures of your pets.

She's gone crafty Cute cards, albums, paper crafts.

Kristie's Kreations Amazing jewelry and county primitives

More sad scrapbook news

My second favorite scrapbook store has closed shop. Linnecards.com was hacked and with the down economy, it wasn't worth bringing the store back up. I'm so sad. Thanks to Sharon, I have an extensive collection of Stickles and Catseye ink pads, Jillibean Soup and Bella Blvd, and don't forget My Mind's Eye.

Where will I shop now? Honestly, without Lifetimemoments.com and Linnecards.com, I doubt I will be buying anything new for scrapbooking for a while. Those two stores are where I kept up with the trends, where I got my inspiration, where I made life-long friends. I'm so bummed.

Split Pea Soup

(I'm copying this over from LM so I'll have it available after LM shuts down.)

1 lb green split peas
1 lb yellow split peas (can use all green if you want)
8 cups of water
1 meaty ham bone
1-2 bay leave(s)
1 finely chopped onion (about 3/4 cup)
2-3 stalks of celery, chopped
3-4 carrots, chopped
1 potato, finely chopped
1-2 garlic cloves, finely minced
A dash of pepper

Wash, sort, and drain split peas. Combine everything in a 6 quart crockpot and cook on high for 4 hours (or more).

Note: This soup is very thick and will be even thicker after sitting in the fridge for a day. When reheating the soup, add a bit of water (or broth). I always make this in the crockpot because I've had problems with the soup sticking and burning when I cook it on the stove.

More SB discounts

Save 35% on everything in the store. Use code 35-323 when checking out at lifetimemoments.com. If you see something you like, buy it now. There are a couple things I missed out on because I waited too long. Jackie charges actual shipping so if you order paper, it will be shipped in a flat rate box...that mean you can buy more to fill it!

So sad

So sad. This is most likely my last order from lifetimemoments.com: a Basic Grey Indian Summer card kit and buttons, lots of ribbon, some envelopes, newer patterned papers, CI buttons (wish I bought more).

I've got a wish list going at the store and things keeps disappearing off of it. So I'm happy for Jackie that things are selling out with only a small discount.